OK, maybe I can pick your brain some more about the appeal of horror movies, not this movie.
Horror movies seem to depend on the themes of betrayal, abandonment, hopelessness, and despair. Not even getting to the gore.
But once we listen to the 911 call of Hind Rajab in Palestine, and recognize how many more six-year-olds everywhere have perished from similar masses of organized adult cruelty, what is the appeal of reproducing those feelings in film?
This is a long time puzzle to me, and I am interested in your good and complex analyses of most everything you write about.
::Paul Atreides girlfriend in the Dune movies. In both, she’s not the hero, but the hero’s helper, and to some degree the hero’s reward. ::
I don't know if I entirely agree—Zendaya's Chani in DUNE II increasingly opposes Paul, who she loves, as she sees him slipping into the role of "Lisan al Gaib" ("The Voice from the Outer World"), until the second movie ends with her breaking with him and riding off on her own. Perhaps she's his conscience, but she grows well beyond being his helpmeet or his reward. Of course, DUNE III could completely spoil this by having Chani back with Paul as if nothing was wrong from the start of the movie—but I don't think that's what Denis Villeneuve wants to say even if it's what Frank Herbert wrote.
Admittedly I don't know how Leto II and Ghanima get born as Paul's and Chani's children if Chani holds firm to her opposition to Paul as Dune's Messiah (which is where Villeneuve wants the story to go, I believe)—perhaps they meet about halfway in the book originally as opponents, hormones take over, they have hot monkey sex, and Chani gets pregnant as a result? I'm not sure if I like that any more than what the book has, but at least it fits this Chani better than her unknowingly digesting a contraceptive in her food for ten years at Irulan's hand!
Yeah, but...nobody but Timothee Chalomet's Paul IS a main focus, really. Baron Harkonnen, Reverend Mother Mohiam, Feyd-Rautha, Irulan, Rabban, the Emperor, Stilgar, even Jessica all revolve around him, but it's the system they live under, and which Jessica exploits, that is his antagonist—not any one person in particular.
Chani is honestly more of an antagonist than nearly anybody else, because she loves him but hates what he's turning into, which gives her a great deal more agency than she had in the books or any previous adaptation. If you're arguing that Paul is the sole main focus and criticizing the movies for choosing Whitey McWhitebread as the Mohammed of Space Islam? "It's in the books" and "That's...kind of a fair cop, really", which sums up my feelings about it!
A book, movie or miniseries done from Zendaya's Chani's point of view, with Paul as the boy she falls in love with who becomes increasingly remote as he begins to fulfill The Prophecy she doesn't really believe in, would be something worth reading and/or watching.
Nice teasing out the complexities of leaving the familiar story arc.
Makes me want to see this one.
it's good!
OK, maybe I can pick your brain some more about the appeal of horror movies, not this movie.
Horror movies seem to depend on the themes of betrayal, abandonment, hopelessness, and despair. Not even getting to the gore.
But once we listen to the 911 call of Hind Rajab in Palestine, and recognize how many more six-year-olds everywhere have perished from similar masses of organized adult cruelty, what is the appeal of reproducing those feelings in film?
This is a long time puzzle to me, and I am interested in your good and complex analyses of most everything you write about.
Thank you.
::Paul Atreides girlfriend in the Dune movies. In both, she’s not the hero, but the hero’s helper, and to some degree the hero’s reward. ::
I don't know if I entirely agree—Zendaya's Chani in DUNE II increasingly opposes Paul, who she loves, as she sees him slipping into the role of "Lisan al Gaib" ("The Voice from the Outer World"), until the second movie ends with her breaking with him and riding off on her own. Perhaps she's his conscience, but she grows well beyond being his helpmeet or his reward. Of course, DUNE III could completely spoil this by having Chani back with Paul as if nothing was wrong from the start of the movie—but I don't think that's what Denis Villeneuve wants to say even if it's what Frank Herbert wrote.
Admittedly I don't know how Leto II and Ghanima get born as Paul's and Chani's children if Chani holds firm to her opposition to Paul as Dune's Messiah (which is where Villeneuve wants the story to go, I believe)—perhaps they meet about halfway in the book originally as opponents, hormones take over, they have hot monkey sex, and Chani gets pregnant as a result? I'm not sure if I like that any more than what the book has, but at least it fits this Chani better than her unknowingly digesting a contraceptive in her food for ten years at Irulan's hand!
It's a little tricky in Dune, but she's certainly not the main focus of the film.
Yeah, but...nobody but Timothee Chalomet's Paul IS a main focus, really. Baron Harkonnen, Reverend Mother Mohiam, Feyd-Rautha, Irulan, Rabban, the Emperor, Stilgar, even Jessica all revolve around him, but it's the system they live under, and which Jessica exploits, that is his antagonist—not any one person in particular.
Chani is honestly more of an antagonist than nearly anybody else, because she loves him but hates what he's turning into, which gives her a great deal more agency than she had in the books or any previous adaptation. If you're arguing that Paul is the sole main focus and criticizing the movies for choosing Whitey McWhitebread as the Mohammed of Space Islam? "It's in the books" and "That's...kind of a fair cop, really", which sums up my feelings about it!
A book, movie or miniseries done from Zendaya's Chani's point of view, with Paul as the boy she falls in love with who becomes increasingly remote as he begins to fulfill The Prophecy she doesn't really believe in, would be something worth reading and/or watching.